What Are The Key Stages Of Brand Development?

Brand development helps businesses create unique selling points for their products or services. It is a critical process to lay the foundation of future branding which is a must to have a competitive edge. The primary objective of brand development is to strengthen the company’s brand image, which can yield benefits like improved conversion, revenue and returns. Like any other business process, even brand development goes through numerous stages to create the desired results. However, depending on the business requirement, the brand development steps can differ. Irrespective of it, a few critical stages of brand development are standard across all organizations. Here is the list of the key stages of brand development. 

1. Create A Brand Development Team 

Before starting the brand development process, an organization must create a brand development team. A brand development team houses the members of the company who have the necessary marketing skills and experience to create a brand. They take on different aspects of brand development like pushing out regular content from the official social media content, collecting feedback, interacting with other brands and more. 

For Example, in McD, it is the job of the brand development team to float McDVoice survey forms to know how they can improve the company’s brand image further. 

2. Planning Of A Brand Development Strategy

A plan development strategy is crucial to consider the different methods that an organization should employ to work on its branding. It makes the entire process easy. Positioning the product and service of the brand is an essential part of this step. It is because it helps to create a USP of the company, which is a must to create uniqueness in the crowded market. Survey forms like MyBKExperience can be beneficial in developing a positionality because it helps the company to know the customers’ exact requirements. 

3. Identification Of The Target Audience 

After planning a brand development strategy, the firm needs to determine its target audiences. Companies can narrow their target audience by determining who will most likely buy their products and services. While doing so, it becomes paramount to consider different factors such as location, age, gender and income. 

Studying the competitors can also help a company to determine its target audience. Lastly, to ensure that the target audience is correctly identified, it is a must for the company to engage with the target market. 

4. Conducting Research 

Research is a stage which every brand development team should take into account. The previously discussed steps give a fair amount of ideas to the company in the path of developing a brand. However, going deeper into the information is essential, and research plays an integral part in it. Conducting the research helps to clarify the goals, strategies and vision of the company. It also involves other jobs like a brand and competitive audit. Furthermore, it helps the brand gain meaningful insights to help a company develop a good brand image. 

5. Management Of Branding Initiatives 

Brand development is ongoing because only a continuous process ensures its success. However, simply running a brand initiative to create a company’s branding is not enough. It is also vital to ensure that things are working in the right direction. Consequently, one of the key stages of brand development includes the management of branding initiatives. When companies manage their brand initiative, they track the progress of the different branding strategies to analyze the ROI. It helps the company to make necessary changes to improve its branding strategies further. 

The final stages of brand development are the most crucial stage for any business. The last step includes implementing brand development strategies, tracking them and finally making the necessary adjustments. Even though many organizations create a brand development strategy which they think might work, reality may hit differently. Hence, tracking both strategy implementations along with the result is crucial. 

When a company successfully creates a brand, it needs to shift its focus towards maintaining the brand image. Brands should take a creative approach to support the brand message to avoid brand fatigue. One of the easiest ways to prevent brand fatigue is to stay updated with the latest trends popular amongst customers, which will always allow the brand to stay connected and relevant to them.